HALLOWEEN: Festive Chocolate-Covered Strawberries

October 27, 2011 at 7:31 am · Filed under Candy & Confections, Chocolate, Halloween & Fall, Recipes

Show of hands: Are these Halloween strawberries cuter than yesterday’s meringue ghost cookies? Not as cute? A tie?

You can send them as a gift, via SharisBerries.com.

Or you can make your own.

You can even plan a strawberry-decorating get-together this weekend. Ask a friend or two if they want to bring their own ingredients and join you. (They’ll also need to bring a baking pan to carry home the decorated berries.)

Ingredients

1 quart of fresh strawberries (1-1/2 pounds—you may wish to go for large or jumbo berries)

8 ounces white chocolate (chocolate chips work fine), plus dark chocolate morsels if you want to make dark strawberries as well

Red and yellow food coloring (to create orange)

Who said boo? Photo of chocolate-covered berries courtesy SharisBerries.com.

Halloween-colored sprinkles, confetti or other embellishments (check the cake-decorating aisle of your grocery store)

Parchment paper

Chocolate tempering machine or substitute (if you find that you enjoy making chocolate-covered berries and want to do it regularly, you can pick up an inexpensive electric melting pot)

Preparation

1. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. Wash and completely dry the strawberries so the chocolate will adhere properly. You may wish to do this a couple of hours in advance.

2. If you own one or can borrow a chocolate tempering machine, great! If not, simply melt the chocolate in a microwave oven or double boiler. For the microwave, melt at half power for 1 minute in a microwave-safe bowl; stir, then heat at 30-second intervals until completely melted.

4. For orange chocolate, whisk two drops of yellow and one drop of red food coloring into melted white chocolate; stir and continue to add color until you get the right shade of orange.

5. Holding each strawberry by the stem, dip about half of it in chocolate. Give it a quick twist, shake off the excess and point it at the ceiling for a second, bottom side up, to be sure the chocolate adheres.

Decorating The Berries

Confetti Design: Before chocolate dries, roll the berries in sprinkles or confetti. Place on parchment paper to set. You can also set the chocolate by putting the tray in the fridge for 5 minutes.

Jack O’ Lantern Design: Melt dark chocolate morsels or a plain chocolate candy bar. Pipe on the face using a pastry bag and a fine tip.

Swirl Design: Use the tines of a fork dipped into melted chocolate of contrasting color(s). Your swirls won’t be as thin and perfectly circular as in the photo, but a thicker swirl is just as good.

Ghost Design (not shown): Dip berries in white chocolate. With the tip of the strawberry as the top of the ghost’s head, pipe eyes in dark chocolate.

Please follow and like us: